October 2005 Update (Letter From Reuben)

Jambo everyone,

I hope you are all doing fine out there. We are praying for all affected by the Katrina and the subsequent one. We hope our friends in Houston and Louisiana were not seriously affected. This email is for everyone who has volunteered with us in one way or another. We have those who have been here in person while others have participated in raising funds for our numerous projects.

I want to personally extend my sincere thanks to you all for the noble gesture you made towards the needy in this remote part of the world. Whatever amount you contributed, rest assured that it not only extended Volunteer Kenya’s life, but it impacted positively to the people of Bungoma. The projects you participated on are lifelines for the people you met. The people you touched may never meet you to express their gratitude personally, but let me assure you that many have come to this office to express their appreciation. On their behalf please accept my thanks.

As you may have realized, there are so many HIV/AIDS cases. Most of the projects we started especially the women’s sewing projects, bee-keeping project, and boda-boda riders were designed to generate income for the families of the affected. This will enable them supplement the costs of home based care for the patients, especially in nutrition.

Because of the numerous HIV/AIDS cases in the area, we have joined a program that is funded by the Indiana University School of medicine based in Eldoret in Kenya . They provide ANTI-RETROVIRALS for the positive cases. The project is designed to provide the ARV’s to the patients for the rest of their life.

But the project does not go out seeking for patients, this has to be done by willing organizations. So every organization has to identify the likely cases, transport them to the place for tests. If they test positive, then they are introduced to the ARV’s depending on the viral load count. The nearest station from Kabula is Webuye District hospital where they have set up a lab and a pharmacy.

Volunteer Kenya (known as ICODEI within Kenya ) has introduced 35 patients to the project in the last two weeks, they all tested positive. Tomorrow, Sept. 29th, we are taking them back for introduction to ARV’s. Each patient has been tested for all likely opportunistic diseases and they will be given drugs for that too.

The project does not provide for nutrition and other support services like home based care. It does not provide transport for the patients’ travel to get their monthly doses of ARV’s and that is where ICODEI has been approached and challenged to come in.

The challenge here for ICODEI is, to assist in transport and small scale projects for the infected to make a living. This would enable them (patients) provide for their nutrition and other immediate needs. ICODEI is therefore requesting all the past and current volunteers, and even those who intend to come in future, to explore all possible ways that can enable us carry out this noble task.

We look forward to seeing past volunteers come back and work with us on this new project, and we are excited to learn and work with all the new future volunteers.

Rev. Reuben Lubanga